


Smile

by Werepirechick



Series: B-team is the Best Team [4]
Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Brothers, Character Study, Concern, Gen, I'm not sure how to tag this one, Introspection, Mental Health Issues, Personality Disorder, Siblings, Worry, Younger Brother, and how donnie might view it, basically just an examination of mikey's less than kind side of personality, heaven knows they're probably not completely okay, older brother, possibly??, probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-25 00:21:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9794135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Werepirechick/pseuds/Werepirechick
Summary: Mikey smiles all the time, but not all those smiles are kind ones. Some of them are terrifying.Donnie sees them, sees those smiles. He doesn’t think their brothers do, nor their father or friends.He sees them, and he wonders sometimes just where those smiles, the unkind and predatory ones, will take his brother.





	

**Author's Note:**

> posting this here bc it's pretty popular on my tumblr.

 

 

Sometimes, Donnie watches his brother, and wonders why their other siblings can’t see all the sides to him.

Mikey is smiles. All smiles all the time. Cheery grins, cheeky grins, mischievous ones you need to watch out for. He’s fond smiles and warm smiles, given when they’re safe at home and there’s no one to fight. He’s small smiles and big smiles and lopsided ones that Donnie knows just as well as their brothers’.

But.

Mikey is also smiles that aren’t like that.

Mikey is false smiles and masked smiles and carefully chosen smiles that can hide just about any other emotion. He’s sharp smiles, knowing smiles, terrifying ones that are all teeth and threat and terror that no one sees till it’s too late.

Mikey smiles all the time, but not all those smiles are kind ones.

Donnie sees it. He doesn’t think their brothers do, nor their father or friends.

Mikey smiles at them all as family and friend, childish and goofy and kid-like despite nearly being an adult. He smiles at them with love and care and familial attachment.

Mikey smiles at their enemies like a predator, canines and gums bared in a way that says he’s all too happy to finally have this, to finally sink his teeth into them and not let go until they stop moving. He smiles at them like they’re a toy, something to pass the time with until he’s bored. Or until he’s not hungry anymore.

Donnie sees something wild in Mikey. Something no human could ever match, hard as some may try. It’s something that their brothers don’t see, their father can’t recognize, and their friends won’t ever know.

It’s something that’s not always there, or may always be there but out of sight, and sometimes even Donnie misses it. He’ll get comfortable and lax, and until they charge back into war, he won’t see the side of Mikey that only comes out then.

Donnie is scared of a lot of things. Of losing people and losing the war.

He’s not scared of his brother. He wouldn’t ever be.

But.

Sometimes he’s scared _for_ Mikey, who seems to get closer to an edge every passing year. An edge that leads to a place Donnie can’t follow, and wouldn’t want to.

There is something to Mikey’s smiles. The other ones.

They’re deadly. Deadly and too wide and _feral_.

Donnie doesn’t know how their family misses that. Misses the way that Mikey has grown.

If Mikey was more like their brothers, driven towards fights with purpose and need to prove themselves- who would he become?

As it is, Mikey is content to smile how he pleases when he pleases.

With drive and purpose, where would the predatory smiles lead him to?

_Over the edge,_ something in Donnie whispers.

Mikey is smiles. Warm, kind, loving smiles that mean home.

Mikey is also teeth bared. Sharp, unsympathetic, terrifying moments of blood thirst.

He smiles how he wants, when he wants. He smiles at Donnie as a brother, and then turns to someone they don’t know, and smiles like a creature with too many teeth.

Donnie doesn’t know how their family doesn’t see that, and doesn’t know if he’s jealous or not.

He loves his brother. He loves all his brothers.

He worries about Mikey most though. Worries where his brother will go with his life.

What would happen, if Mikey got bored of playing?

What it look like, a version of Mikey that stopped being amused with simple things and games?

Would the predatory smiles stay?

Donnie doesn’t think on that, and tries to focus on the kinder smiles that Mikey gives.

He remains aware though, of the ones that lurk out of sight, and doesn’t let his guard down when they show.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> we as a fandom should acknowledge more sides to these characters, especially the b-team kids, who get short-changed and ignored pretty badly in canon.
> 
> tbh- mildly sociopathic and chaotic neutral mikey is my favourite mikey, and i don't know why so many people don't take advantage of this version of him. he's great.  
> i'll have to write more for him. probably in 'Two Sides of a Mirror'. it'd fit nicely in that universe.


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